308 Saiga with Curly Maple furniture

I thought I'd share some pictures of my Saiga 308.

I did the conversion myself. Trigger is an RSA adjustable. I made the lower handguard retainer out of a 3/4" clamping collar and a Hungarian lower handguard retainer. Pistol grip and sling are Polish. Finish is flat black Norrel's Molyresin.

I built the furniture myself using Pacific Coast Curly Maple.

I made a fixture that swung the buttstock in a 12 inch radius. Mounted in front of it was a router clamped in a 6 inch cross slide vice. I would swing the stock past the router to cut the curve on the side, then crank the cross slide vice over one turn. I went through the process several times for each side until I had reached the finished size.

The rest of the work was pretty much free hand.

The other main tools I used were:
small benchtop bandsaw
drill press with sanding drums
belt sander
1/2" band file
carving knives and gouges

I sanded the bare wood up to 400 grit. I raised the grain between grits by getting the wood soaking wet, then blasting it dry with a heat gun.

Then I stained the wood using an alcohol based dye stain. Mohawk brand, 'Oxblood' color.

Then gave it many coats of a 50/50 mix of mineral spirits and 'Hope's 100% Tung Oil.' I would wetsand using the same mix. 320, 400, and 600 grit.
Then I switched to straight Tung Oil for many coats.

Then I did a French Polish using Behlins french polish, alcohol, and 4f pumice.

After that I used several coats of past wax.

The first picture shows the furniture after staining and some Tung Oil mix. It is sitting on the block of wood that the stock set was cut out of. Note that I cut out a piece for a pistol grip but decided that the Polish Bakelite would look better.

These two pictures show the change in the figure. The alcohol/dye stain filled the pores of the wood but was sanded off of the sides of the grain. When you are looking down into the pore you see the color. When you are looking at the side of the fiber you see blond. Open the two pictures in separate windows and flip between them for maximum effect.

Muttman, I'll try to get a photo but it will be a few days until I can.

Basically I made a large wooden frame in the shape of a L.

The vertical part of the L was an old 165mm howitzer ammo crate and the bottom was made out of 2x4s and plywood.

The maple for the stock (already cut to the outline of an AKM stock) was screwed to two legs, the other ends of which were screwed to the sides of the ammo crate(at the same height as the router bit). The distance between the screws was 12" which was the curvature I figured looked closest to a standard AKM stock. Another piece was screwed to one of the legs to act as a handle so I could swing the wood up and down.

The 6" cross slide vice was fitted to the bottom of the L.
A 1/4" router was fitted in a small box that clamped into the cross slide vice.
The bit was facing the back of the L.
Axis of the bit is horizontal.

With the cross slide vice all the way over to one side (x-axis) I slowly cranked the knob to move the router toward the wood (y-axis) while moving the handle on the jig up and down. The first contact touched only the top and bottom of the stock. I'd go up and down and then make one crank on the x-axis. Worked across the stock, turning the x-axis after every up and down on the handle.

Then back the x-axis up to the start. Advance the Y-axis in a bit then repeat the process going all the way across the x-axis.
Kept repeating the process until the router was cutting continuously across the surface of the stock.

Then I unscrewed the stock and flipped it over so the other rough side was facing the router. Then I went through the whole process again until the stock was the correct thickness.

I'm still amazed that it worked.

I've got two Yugoslavian M-95 5.56 Nato Underfolder kits. I'm thinking about building one as a fixed stock kit. I would love to do a buttstock and two sets of handguards so that I could have a matching set, one underfolder and one fixed stock. I've got some nice quilted maple that I might used. Considering how much time I ended up putting in the Saiga 308 set I might just buy something really wild. Gilmer Wood is near where I work and has some really cool stuff.